What do Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Jarvis Cocker, M.I.A and Antony Gormley have in common? Other than being internationally celebrated creatives, each of these big names was at one point a student at London’s world-renowned art, design and performance college, Central Saint Martins. With its long list of impressive alumni, it’s no surprise that the school’s annual degree shows attract a flock of art critics and culture journalists who seek to champion the school’s latest promising artists.

At the forefront of these celebrations is global marketing communications network, MullenLowe Group. MullenLowe will be returning to the legendary art college for its eighth year running in order to handpick the most exciting and forward-thinking creative talent across a range of disciplines. It will do so in the form of the MullenLowe NOVA Awards; a set of awards that shine a light on innovative artists with unique imagination and ground-breaking creative vision.

From Central Saint Martins’ 1,300 graduating students, the MullenLowe NOVA Awards will be presented to five promising students. Shortlisted work will be displayed at the degree shows with the final winners being announced in July 2018. The awards are an opportunity for students to gain the confidence and drive required to apply their skills beyond their university experience. Previous winners have, for example, gone on to exhibit at London Design Festival and participate in New York and Milan Design Weeks.

This year, MullenLowe Group judges will be joined by designer Hannah Martin, Transition Gallery’s Cathy Lomax, V&A East’s Catherine Ince and It’s Nice That’s own senior creative Ali Hanson. We caught up with Ali to find out a little bit more about judging the MullenLowe NOVA Awards.

It’s Nice That: What excited you about becoming a judge for the MullenLowe NOVA awards?

Ali Hanson: It’s exciting to see what graduates are thinking about, what their focus is. I love being able to see new work that surprises me. Students at the top of their game are at an incredibly exciting stage creatively, which can be inspiring to see up close.

INT: What makes a degree show an important part of a young artist’s career?

AH: There’s always so much hype around degree shows. At It’s Nice That we always get excited at this time of year because we know new talent will emerge and inspire us with work, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. Degree shows are the catalyst for this in so many ways. If you put your all into the show, nine times out of ten it will kickstart your career.

INT: What do you look for when judging?

AH: We judge so many disciplines from fine art to graphic design to fashion. You have to find a common ground across those disciplines and find a level to judge people fairly on. Seeing things I’d never dreamt of making or thinking of is always the highlight for me. I love to see the approach to craft students have as well, it’s one thing having an idea but if you can realise it in a skilful way that’s what makes a good project great.

INT: Why do you think initiatives like the MullenLowe NOVA Awards are important?

AH: It gives talented people the leg-up they deserve at such a pivotal moment in their career. I hope it gives anyone nominated for initiatives like NOVA a much-needed confidence boost at a daunting time of entering a competitive industry, whether they win or not.

INT: As an art college graduate yourself, what advice would you give to students looking to continue their work?

AH: You have to hustle. You can’t sit at home, send an email and expect an opportunity to come your way. Make the most of any small opportunity you get. Meet people, send a thousand emails and don’t worry if only ten people reply, speak to everyone who comes to your show, knock on doors, be persistent in getting that meeting and be prepared for when you do get it. Do anything you can to get people excited about you and your work. Be positive, show your hunger and desire to work and things will come your way. Even if things don’t turn out as you hoped when you graduate, don’t let it put you off. Keep going. To use an old adage, success in this industry is certainly a marathon not a sprint.

INT: The MullenLowe ‘YourNOVA’ Award will be open for judging soon, what’s your top tip for people voting in the ‘People’s Choice’ award?

AH: Go with your gut. Ask yourself what moves or surprises you over everything else you’ve seen. It comes down to two things for me. Does the idea feel new and is it beautifully realised.

YourNOVA details: To see the shortlisted work and cast your vote for the winner of the “people’s choice” MullenLowe YourNOVA Award, visit MullenLoweNOVA.com. Voting will open online on 25 June and close on 2 July.

For any Londoner, or anyone visiting the capital, with a love of the printed page, Wardour News in Soho was the go-to spot to find the niche, interesting titles alongside the big hitters. It’s with a heavy heart that we use the word “was” as, at the end of last month, the newsagent closed its doors becoming the latest victim of rising rents in central London.

It’s Nice That returns to Field Day this year, partnering with the London-based music festival on its Moth Club stage. In the first article of our coverage of the two-day event in Brockwell Park, we tell the story of record label Awesome Tapes From Africa, whose artist Hailu Mergia will play on our partnering stage. Visit the Field Day website to get tickets for the weekend on 1–2 June.

We’ve got four days off! It’s the Easter Bank Holiday so we’ll be out of the studio, having a bit of rest and probably sheltering from the rain rather than walking around in the spring sunshine we’d hoped for. Even though we won’t be around to update you over the next few days, to keep you entertained we’ve chosen not only the most read articles from 2018 so far, but some of our personal favourites. From discipline-spanning long-reads to the finest graphic design, photography, illustration and animation, the team have hand-picked the articles we’re still thinking about months later for you to enjoy again.

Humankind’s relationship to drinking water has developed into what can only be described as a toxic one. This is particularly true in our cities where tensions surrounding water have resulted in many calling for a ban on single-use, disposable plastic bottles. In what is the beginning of a year-long programme, A/D/O has launched the Water Futures Design Challenge. An incentivised contest, it “challenges designers and creators to conceptualise and imagine innovative new ways to solve this global crisis.”

What do Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Jarvis Cocker, M.I.A and Antony Gormley have in common? Other than being internationally celebrated creatives, each of these big names was at one point a student at London’s world-renowned art, design and performance college, Central Saint Martins. With its long list of impressive alumni, it’s no surprise that the school’s annual degree shows attract a flock of art critics and culture journalists who seek to champion the school’s latest promising artists.

From a gruff Glaswegian growl to an Essex wide boy’s clipped vowels, we’ve got some damn good accents here in the UK. These peculiarities of pronunciation are something that has fascinated illustrator Jean Jullien ever since he first moved to the UK from France and was his inspiration when creating the poster you’ll find in the new issue of Printed Pages, which you can get your mitts on now.

Photographers Sole Satana and José Valiente are from a small town located in the south east of Spain called Lorca. Having grown up together and studied photography at the same university, the duo’s interests and preferences have evolved harmoniously over time. This includes a curious inclination to the meat industry’s inner workings, which are explored in their first collaborative series, Fiambre.

For any Londoner, or anyone visiting the capital, with a love of the printed page, Wardour News in Soho was the go-to spot to find the niche, interesting titles alongside the big hitters. It’s with a heavy heart that we use the word “was” as, at the end of last month, the newsagent closed its doors becoming the latest victim of rising rents in central London.

Dario Maglionico’s paintings of young adults wearing Adidas trainers, working on Apple Macs and drinking glasses of red wine in their shared apartments don’t seem too far off from reality do they? Except they are. Despite the photographic accuracy of Dario’s skilfully crafted worlds, the inhabitants often appear multiple times, either blending into the furniture or sporting missing heads and invisible torsos.

Onomatopee Projects, started by Freek Lomme and Remco van Bladel, is hard to define. The duo – a curator and writer and graphic designer respectively – started the project in May of 2006 as they wanted to “step up for progressive culture, as well as engage smart and interesting people” within their community in Eindhoven. Now, 12 years later, Onomatopee has developed into a large operation encompassing exhibitions, a design practice, publishing, gigs, readings, performances and “whatever else, such as a travel agency or a nail salon”.

This week’s Friday Mixtape is by Portland-based experimental rock band, Wooden Shjips! With an avid following across the world of drone heads nodding along to their records over the past decade, fans will already be well aware that the band released their fifth record, and first in five years, V. earlier this month.

The long, sleepless nights have finally paid off. The bachelor’s degree is yours and there’s a picture of you, certificate in hand, to prove it. But, as the celebrations begin to die down, a creeping existential angst surmounts you. What lies next? Who do I want to be? What do I want to spend my days doing? Finding a replacement to the long weeks of university term time can be tough and, to many, a postgraduate degree can seem like the obvious choice.

Designers Gordon Reid and Callum Stephenson’s World Cup beer mat project began, quite fittingly, whilst celebrating the end of a full on project together by watching football in the pub. “We were laughing about various absurd moments that have happened [in the World Cup] over the years — the Zidane head butt, Lineker shitting himself etc and decided there was definitely something in it for a project.”

Tan lines, tulle tutus and sequins is what you can expect from photographer Jonnie Chambers’ latest series, Txatxarramendi. Inspired by the small Spanish island of the same name, Jonnie has incorporated a number of holiday-references — wet hair, sun kissed skin and a general carefree demeanour — in his dreamy new shoot for Coeval magazine.

We are excited to announce that Printed Pages SS18 is now on general sale. The biannual magazine is It’s Nice That’s curated view of the creative world from the past six months, packed with inspiring and innovative creatives from emerging talents to leading names of the industry. Underlying this issue is a theme of using creativity as a voice, a platform for discovery, innovation, unity and change.

George Wylesol is an illustrator, designer and writer who follows his intuition. Originally from Philadelphia but based in Baltimore, the American creative’s portfolio is a real mixture of styles and subject matters and is one we’ve long been a fan of. The project that caught our eye this time is a series of three visual stories, Ghosts,The Rabbit, and Worthless, which have been compiled into a collection of short comics named — unsurprisingly, perhaps — Ghosts, etc.

It’s Nice That’s Ones to Watch shines a light on 12 emerging talents who we think will conquer the creative world in 2018. From a global pool of creative talent, we have chosen our 2018 Ones To Watch for their ability to consistently produce inspiring and engaging work across a diverse range of disciplines. Each of our selections continually pushes the boundaries of what is possible with their creative output. Ones to Watch 2018 is supported by Uniqlo.

Toulon is a city in southern France with a large military harbour on the Mediterranean coast. It is also a city with a rich history: it was Toulon that Napoléon Bonaparte captured from the Anglo-Spanish forces in 1973, releasing the city to Maximilien Robespierre; the man who declared the motto of the French Revolution as “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité ”. It was this history that Irish photographer Daragh Soden set out to capture while simultaneously reflecting its modern personality when he travelled there to make a portrait of the city.

Every major event — a wedding, holiday or BBQ — is always attached to the saying: “We can’t control the weather!” It’s a saying that however many times it’s said, and how you know it’s probably always going to be true, you just wish it wasn’t. Imagine! Anyway, it hasn’t stopped scientists trying to control the weather through modification, and the methods and implications of doing so are catalogued photographically in Sarah Piegay Espenon’s first book, Humanise Something Free of Error.